Results tagged “cryptozoology” from 60 Second Science

Since last summer the small town of Cuero, Texas has been the epicenter of one of the Internet’s favorite points of discussion: chupacabras. In July, a motorist plowed into a hairless purple-hued doglike creature that fits the rough physical description of what the southwest’s most beloved cryptid would actually look like, leaving many people to speculate—sometimes wildly—about the lineage of the unfortunate roadkill.

Phylis Canion, on whose property it expired, decided to find out just what the hell this creature was that, true to chupacabra legend, had been sucking the blood out of all her chickens. So in conjunction with a local news station, she sent DNA samples to Texas State University for further elaboration. The answer she received was far from earth-shattering. It belongs to the coyote family, quoth the lab.

Continue reading 'The chupacabra myth: exposed!' >

Hold on to your butts: We've all heard of pitcher plants that eat insects and other creepie crawlies, but a new pitcher plant discovered in Australia has been known to eat objects as large as small rats. Sucks for you, Australia — everything you touch in that country can already kill you, and now you have to worry about more than just dingoes eating your babies.

The new species, called "Tenax" (presumably because that just sounds evil) was discovered by James Cook University ecologist Charles Clarke and a colleague near the Jardine River, but the exact location is secret.

(Pic of the rat-eating plant after the rat-eating jump).

Continue reading 'Frightening discovery of the day: Australian rat-eating plant' >

OK, perhaps not, but even a baby cryptozoologist can spot Ol' Harry Henderson in the lower-left corner of this image taken by Spirit on the Martian surface.

How did Bigfoot get there? What does he subsist on, besides sub-surface frozen water and possible fossilized microbes? These are questions for hardier cryptozoologists than me.

I'm just glad he's getting out of the Pacific Northwest a bit more often.

Original Hi-Res Spirit Image of Martian surface (NASA)

Continue reading 'Bigfoot lives on Mars' >

As a kid, who didn't want unicorns or dragons to exist? I dedicated large portions of my childhood to finding these mythical creatures in the woods behind my house, but I never had any luck. I still remember all the kids at school laughing at me and telling me that dragons and unicorns aren't real. There's no quicker way to crush an 18-year-old's innocence, I can tell you.

I could've saved a lot of time if I'd only gone to the Field Museum in Chicago's exhibit "Mythic Creatures: Dragons, Unicorns & Mermaids," I could've saved a lot of time. The exhibit uses fossils, preserved specimens, recreated models, and ancient artifacts to explain how the mythical imagination grew around the fossil record. Ancient Greeks who unearthed skulls of dwarf elephants (pictured) on Mediterranean islands mistook the cavity in the center for a single eye hole — voila, the myth of the Cyclops is born.

(Click through for more pictures of fossils-turned-myths at the Field Museum).

Continue reading 'Cryptozoologically yours: Mythical creatures often rooted in real prehistoric animals' >